'Trump Said I Reminded Him of Ivanka' — Stormy Daniels' Allegation Forwarded to Epstein Hours After It Hit the Press

A newly released document from the United States Department of Justice's Epstein files archive has drawn fresh attention to one of the more unsettling allegations to emerge from Stormy Daniels' account of her alleged 2006 affair with Donald Trump. According to file EFTA02536742, part of Dataset 11 of the officially released Epstein files, an associate of Jeffrey Epstein forwarded the convicted sex offender a New York Post article about Daniels' claim that Trump told her she reminded him of his eldest daughter, Ivanka, and did so on the very evening the story was published.

The email, sent on Wednesday, 17 January 2018 at 7:09 PM, was addressed directly to Jeffrey Epstein and came from Richard Kahn, Epstein's longtime accountant and later co-executor of his estate, of HBRK Associates Inc., based at 575 Lexington Avenue in New York. The subject line read: 'Porn star: Trump said I reminded him of Ivanka after sex | New York Post', with a link to the original piece included in the body of the message. The document offers no accompanying commentary from either Kahn or Epstein.

The Allegation Itself

The story Kahn forwarded centred on an interview Stormy Daniels—whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford—gave to In Touch Weekly in 2011, years before she signed any non-disclosure agreement. However, the interview was not published until January 2018, following a Wall Street Journal report that Daniels had received a $130,000 (approximately £96,318) hush money payment, arranged by Trump's then-attorney Michael Cohen, shortly before the 2016 presidential election.

In the transcribed interview with reporter Jordi Lippe-McGraw, Daniels said Trump 'bragged about his daughter quite a bit' and stated: 'He told me once that I was someone to be reckoned with, beautiful and smart just like his daughter.' The remark was widely understood to be a reference to Ivanka Trump, who was 24 years old at the time of the alleged encounter in July 2006. His other daughter, Tiffany, would have been just 11.

Daniels repeated the claim publicly in March 2018, during a widely watched interview on CBS's '60 Minutes' with Anderson Cooper. She said Trump told her, 'Wow, you — you are special. You remind me of my daughter,' adding, 'You're smart and beautiful, and a woman to be reckoned with, and I like you.' According to Daniels, the comparison was made before the two had sex. She later testified to the same effect during Trump's hush money criminal trial in New York in May 2024.

Not the Only Woman

Daniels was not the only woman to allege that Trump compared her to Ivanka. Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who also alleged an affair with Trump in 2006, made a near-identical claim in a separate interview with Anderson Cooper in March 2018, saying Trump told her: 'He said I was beautiful like her and, you know, you're a smart girl.'

Trump has denied any affair with Daniels, though a New York jury in 2024 found him guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records related to the hush money payment made to keep her silent ahead of the 2016 election. He was later sentenced, though the case has remained politically contested.

Why the Epstein Connection Matters

The significance of the newly released DOJ file lies not in the allegation itself — which has been part of the public record since 2018 — but in what it reveals about the information environment surrounding Epstein and his associates at the time. The email shows that on the same evening the New York Post published the story, someone within Epstein's circle considered it notable enough to forward directly to him, suggesting his network was actively monitoring Trump-related coverage during a period of heightened legal and political scrutiny of the then-president.

In a 2011 email to his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein referred to Trump as 'the dog that hasn't barked', a phrase understood to mean Trump had not been mentioned in connection with Epstein's activities despite, Epstein claimed, a named alleged victim having spent hours at his home with him. Trump has consistently denied any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.

The DOJ's release of Epstein files has been ongoing since December 2025, following the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Trump is mentioned more than 1,000 times across the 3 million documents released, though the DOJ has stated that some documents contain 'untrue and sensationalist claims' and that no evidence of criminal conduct by the president has been found in the files. Trump has not been charged with any offence in connection with Epstein.

The EFTA02536742 document, now publicly accessible via the DOJ's Epstein files portal, is one of thousands being reviewed by journalists, lawmakers, and members of the public as pressure continues to mount on the administration over the completeness of the release.